Tuesday, April 28th 2026
Sony's New DRM Appears To Be a Refund Scam Workaround
News recently broke about a new DRM system Sony had seemingly silently implemented in the PS5 that would make buyers of digital games go online every 30 days to validate a license or potentially be locked out of their games until they could access an internet connection. Now, according to some research done by andshrew on the ResetEra forums, it seems as though it's not quite as simple as that. As it turns out, going online to validate the DRM license may only be a requirement for the first 14 days as an attempt to avoid users buying a game and then refunding the game and playing it anyway in offline mode using some exploit—at least that is the current speculative explanation, since Sony is yet to address this debacle publicly.
The explanation in the ResetEra forum post details the full methodology, but essentially, what the user found by comparing two copies of the same game purchased on two separate PSN accounts, once before the new requirement and once after, is that Sony is now issuing a 30-day license for the first 14 days and swapping that license out for a perpetual license after the refund period has lapsed. This would mean that, after Sony's DRM server has been able to validate the license once after the 14-day refund period is over, there will be no restrictions on offline play, as is usually the case with console games. This somewhat resolves some of the issues that have been brought up surrounding this DRM feature, but it still may present issues for those who are not able to connect to the internet more than 14 days after purchasing a game—this is especially true, since there is no clearly visible notice about this DRM feature on Sony's site at the time of writing.
Andshrew's ResetEra post reads:
Source:
andshrew on ResetEra
The explanation in the ResetEra forum post details the full methodology, but essentially, what the user found by comparing two copies of the same game purchased on two separate PSN accounts, once before the new requirement and once after, is that Sony is now issuing a 30-day license for the first 14 days and swapping that license out for a perpetual license after the refund period has lapsed. This would mean that, after Sony's DRM server has been able to validate the license once after the 14-day refund period is over, there will be no restrictions on offline play, as is usually the case with console games. This somewhat resolves some of the issues that have been brought up surrounding this DRM feature, but it still may present issues for those who are not able to connect to the internet more than 14 days after purchasing a game—this is especially true, since there is no clearly visible notice about this DRM feature on Sony's site at the time of writing.
I mentioned earlier in the thread how I had a game that was affected by this, and which subsequently fixed itself.
I've been doing some further testing to try and understand what is happening, I have a jailbroken PS4 so I can poke around at things behind the scenes. Here's what I've found about how licensing seems to work on the PS4.
The PS4 will install a license file for all of the content your account owns, regardless of whether or not that content is actually installed (this is a key point if it is true that they are addressing a license exploit). This happens automatically, so if I buy a game on the PS Store website and then turn on my PS4 the license for that recent purchase is automatically installed. Whether or not you can actually use the license for the game is then further controlled by the activation state of your console (ie. is it set to Primary for offline play), or whether you're online and connected to PSN (in the case of non-Primary consoles). In either case those license files always seem to be present.
These license files are valid for an indefinite amount of time for content you own outright, 14 days for content from PS+ Extra and Premium, and for the duration of your subscription for PS+ Essential games.
What has changed now is that new purchases are not being automatically issued a license file with an indefinite duration, instead a 30-day license is issued. I have two recent purchase games I've been able to test this with.
Game one I purchased 9th April. I turned the PS4 on 21st April and a 30-day license for the game was automatically installed. I then installed the game on 25th April. The information screen confirmed the game was only playable offline for another 26 days. Approx. 30 minutes after installing the game, the license had been replaced with one which is valid for an indefinite amount of time, and this remains the case even if I delete and reinstall the game. So that is 16 days between the initial purchase and the license showing as being eligible for permanent offline play.
Game two I purchased yesterday 27th April, and I installed the same day. Again a 30-day license for the game was installed. Unlike the first game, no permanent license has been issued yet.
So why is one game behaving differently to another? The obvious thing which stands out is length of time since purchase. I've owned the first game for 16 days, which puts it outside of PSN's 14-day refund window. So I am speculating that perhaps people were exploiting the fact that you could purchase a game, grab the indefinite license file for the thing off of an exploitable PS4 and then refund the purchase - and Sony is currently mitigating this issue by time limiting the initial license that you are issued.
In lieu of actual information from Sony, perhaps we can do some community detective work to validate this; if anyone has a PS4 and recent purchase made prior to 14th April, do you see a time limit on the game once you have installed it? Does it go away after a short while of being connected online. Or if you have a more recent purchase, see if it changes from the 30-day license to indefinite once it's been more than 14 days.
20 Comments on Sony's New DRM Appears To Be a Refund Scam Workaround
While I despise DRM in any form, we can't blame them for this. Sony has the full right to prevent fraud by it's users.
nothing which could be already achieved by a physical worm media which ensured one license by worm.
This is the case with a lot of every day life stuff as well.
Now you say, well just go online every 14 Days (that is now required by DENUVO) or every month or whatever they require.
But what if you do not have internet? What if Sony decides to switch off the Servers? Or they get blown up by some Conflict?
You are sitting there, with your payed Game installed, but you can not play it!
How long will it take to change their ToS and do whatever they really wanted??... its Sony ffs.
Sony has the "Download Rule" which states that staring a download generally makes you ineligible for a refund. There are few exceptions, for instance remember the CP2077 fiasco?
Perhaps, before spitting moose muffins, you should go to Sony's website and read their rules? Here, I got a picture for you!
Now, what is that first checkbox? "Content has not been downloaded or streamed"? Interesting. Most people would call that a very "garbage" return policy that is FAR WORSE then Steam, or GoG, or most other platforms!